


The Benefits of Being Mute

by Ranowa



Series: The Caged Bird Doesn't Sing [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Automail, Fake Character Death, Gen, Maes Hughes Lives, Mute Maes Hughes, Muteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-03 01:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12738408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: Being mute makes things much easier, actually.Comparatively.





	1. What He Touches

**Author's Note:**

> FINALLY, I post this. It was supposed to be a birthday present for maeshughesofficial on tumblr, but... I think this is a couple hours late.... *whacks self* bad author. Author fail ;-; well... happy late birthday!!!
> 
> Anyway. More of the same, if you read the first fic in this series! The next installment should hopefully be quite different (enter ROY), but for now- I give you more angsty Hughes with Winry! :D Enjoy!!!
> 
> also LOOK AT THE PRETTY ART YOU GUYS! LOOK AT ITTTTTTTTT

art by the lovely [maeshughesofficial](https://maeshughesofficial.tumblr.com/)

* * *

 

Maes spends three weeks with Winry Rockbell as his mechanic. It is three horrifically stupid, inexcusably dangerous weeks, ones he knows he would _never_ forgive himself for if anything had happened to Winry as a result of them. He keeps them a terrible secret from Alex and Maria, and in a way, he keeps them secret from Winry, too, because she has no idea who he really is or what she’s gotten herself into.

These are also the three best weeks he’s had since waking up in Rush Valley, and right now, while everything is still going well, he just can’t bring himself to regret them.

There’s something thrilling about just being able to sit with someone who treats him like a person again, not just a newly disabled hospital patient. The Rush Valley doctors are good at what they do, but Winry spends every day treating people just like him- it’s the first time no one’s stared at his throat or pitied his sad, pathetic state or tried to help but really just humiliated him, and he doesn’t even have the words to thank her for that.

Far more of it is just he can’t stand being this _lonely,_ and to be with somebody _familiar_ seals over an aching hurt he hadn’t even known he had. _W_ hen everything else that he knows has just been ripped away to leave this bloody, gaping wound behind, just getting the chance to be there with somebody that he knows, whether she’s aware of it or not, does more good for him than he could ever put into words.

She tells him more about Ed and Al, things he’d all already known but to hear them all again now, like this, he can’t help but smile. She tells him more about her home; where she’s from, her dog, her grandmother, Risembool itself, things he hadn’t known much about before and now listens to with rapt attention, unendingly grateful to her for every single bit of attention she gives him. Maes can’t talk, not in any of these sessions, so Winry just does so, absentmindedly filling the silence with whatever crosses her mind at the time- she probably doesn’t even have any idea how much it means to him.

It means the damn world to him, right now.

It’s not even all just her, either- at least, that’s how he justifies it to himself late at night, when the danger of this terrible venture comes back to hit him full force. Working with Winry has all but forced him to getting to know her other patients, too, the other amputees who are just ecstatic about welcoming another one into the fold. Sure, he suspects their enthusiasm is that he’s just a freak now, even in Rush Valley, a freak among freaks; there are one too many lingering stares on the horrific burn scar on his throat for him to think any other of her patients would get this same treatment. But they welcome him in with open arms, metal and flesh, all the same, and suddenly, Maes finds himself with a new group of friends. There’s something to do _beside_ sit in bed and, essentially, mope all day- _Roy would be so proud,_ he thinks with a bitter, ironic twist in his stomach- and even though he feels guilty for it at first, to be wasting time with anything other than investigating the homunculi and what just might get him back home, even he can’t deny it’s good for him. He spends less and less time in his room and starts actually feeling healthier again, and slowly allowing himself to really adapt to the first time to the idea of automail.

Adapt to the just the idea of it, of course, and not the actual material itself, because Winry hadn’t finished making his arm yet.

Until, three weeks after he’d unwittingly become her patient, she did.

* * *

She comes in one day to their regularly scheduled session all excited and beaming, smile and eyes bright and brilliant, because the day is the day, she tells him- the day to make the final measurements. “Tomorrow, if all goes well, we’ll finally be attaching the real thing!” she cries, excitement already overflowing as she claps her hands together. “Then you’ll finally be able to leave the hospital, and you’ll have automail! Are you ready?”

Maes...

Is not, really, but he figures he doesn’t really have all that much choice in it either way.

At his uncomfortable, weak smile, Winry just nods back without hesitation, already moving to her tools again. “Don’t worry. No one feels ready, at first. You’ll see when you get it, though- this’ll be just what you need to get you back on your feet again.”

He nods again, just as weak and uncomfortable as before. Again, he doesn’t exactly have a choice. If he ever wants to see Gracia and Elicia again, it’s just something that needs to be done, no matter how terrifying and surreal it is to look at the gleaming metal arm he can just glimpse from her bag of tools and know it’s supposed to become a part of _him._ There’s no way... he gulps, swallowing. Ed makes it look so natural and easy, but suddenly faced with it like this Maes can not imagine how anyone could ever do it; he can’t imagine ever using that thing as his own, he can’t imagine it hanging off his shoulder- and what would Gracia say when she saw it? It’ll look- look _wrong-_

But he has to do it. As always, he _has_ to do it.

Maes stands stock still as he lets Winry come to his side again, hands already for the stump with a determined, clinical air. She carries out the final examination in silence for a few seconds, nodding and murmuring something to herself, then beams again. “Everything’s looking good so far! Don’t you worry, we’ll be having this attached in no time...”

Well, that’s _exactly_ what he’s worrying about, so that doesn’t quite help at all.

As nervous and distracted as Maes is, however, it takes him a few moments to realize that Winry isn’t her usual self either.

Her hands are moving slower than normal, and when he glances at her it’s to see her expression is drawn, too, uncertainty and unease flickering in her eyes. Her smile from before, now that she’s not actively trying to reassure him, is gone, too, and Maes frowns.

 _What’s wrong?_ he writes to her. He’s almost gotten used to doing it one-handed, and it actually looks nearly steady as he hands it to her.

Winry looks even more upset to have had it pointed out, her face falling and teething suddenly worrying on her lower lip. She stares at the note for several seconds, still seeming to be trying to avoid his gaze, then just slumps with a sigh. “I’m very sorry,” she says quietly. “I’ve just been... distracted. I... I’m sorry. But if I attach it tomorrow, I won’t be able to be there when you recover from it. That’s usually something patients want, but unless you really want to postpone the procedure for a little while, I _can’t_ be there.”

Maes frowns again.

He really has no idea what this is, but wants very badly to just tell her it’s okay, whatever it is, so _please_ just stop feeling bad about it. After everything she’s already done for him, the last thing he wants for her now is to feel guilty that she can’t be there for him after even this, too. But he doubts the assurance will mean much to her now, with her looking so guilty like that, so again, he finds himself writing a message to her, this time asking her why.

 ****Winry looks down at her knees, her eyes still sad, but her smile failing now, as well, the bright smile she always tries to wear for her patients slipping into a quiet dismay that makes him just want to reach out and hug her and make everything all right. “I’m sorry,” she tells him again, shaking her head, then sits back with a heavy sigh. “I’m very sorry, I know it’s unprofessional of me to bring my personal troubles in like this. But I... I just really _have_ to be in Central then.” She pauses to give him an uncertain, evaluating look, as if torn on how much to really tell him, but Maes can’t help but suddenly stiffen in suspicion. She has to be in Central? Something’s going on, then. Most likely with people he knows. His hand suddenly itches, worry crawling up his spine as he can’t help but think of what could’ve gone wrong now- it’s probably Ed, but- but, what if-?

It takes a heroic effort for Maes to master himself and remain calm, face betraying nothing innocent curiosity as he waits for her to explain. He just holds still and sits there and smiles, all the while his stomach squirming and mind racing with all of the worst case scenarios- until finally, Winry looks at him, and seems to decide he’s worthy of the truth.

“I’m going to be honest, sir,” she says quietly, and with more than a hint of sadness. “There’s this little kid, and it’s... it’s quite a complicated situation. But it’s the kid’s birthday, and I just think it’s really important that I be there for this one. It’s going to be hard on the family, this time, they’ve just... gone through something difficult, and...” She bites her lip again, wincing a little as her eyes leave him to drop miserably to the floor. “I just want to do what I can to help. That’s all. And I know the more familiar faces that’ll be there for them, the easier it’ll be. So, I... just _have_ to be there.”

These words hit him with the gutwrenching force of a blow to the stomach.

Oh, she’s being purposefully vague, he knows. Couching everything in nonspecific terms and avoiding his eyes to try and keep the privacy of this family. In fact, doing a pretty decent job of it, because if he were anyone else, he would be just as lost as before.

But he’s not anyone else, and Maes knows _exactly_ what she means.

He sinks backwards slowly, hand trembling, and his mouth has suddenly gone so dry it doesn’t matter that his throat can’t form words, because he wouldn’t have been able to speak even if it had.

Elicia’s birthday is in a week and a half.

She’s talking about his daughter.

It’s Elicia’s first birthday after his death. And Winry, Winry who understands what that feels like more than anyone else in the world- Winry is going to be there for them, because that’s the kind of person she is. She sees someone in pain, she knows that she can help, and it stopped being a choice then and there. She will help, because that’s what she’s best at, and that’s all she’s ever wanted to do.

For the first time, Maes thinks he truly understands just what kind of a person Winry Rockbell is. He’s proud of her. Which makes no sense, because he’s not her father- he’s had no hand in making her into who she is today- but-

But he’s unreasonably, stupidly proud of her. And in that moment, one arm and no voice and all, he desperately wants to hug her, with all the thanks he has to give.

He doesn’t, but, smiling at the young blonde with downcast, saddened, guilty eyes but steady, working hands, he makes his decision.

* * *

The day his arm is to be attached, Maes doesn’t let himself be nervous about it, because he has something else to be nervous about instead.

He doesn’t let himself look at the gleaming metal limb or the array of tools around it just waiting to be put to use. He doesn’t let do anything but nod as Winry preps him, giving him the same pep talk he imagines all her patients get, and does his very best not to flinch when she quietly warns him this’ll be the worst pain he’s ever felt in his life. He nods and nods, and when she’s finally done, and asks him if he has any other questions- he nods back.

The stuffed bear he hands her is ridiculous. He’d bought it from the hospital gift shop downstairs, and it’s pink and has a red heart sewn into its stomach and so big around he’d gotten a wheelchair to bring it back upstairs, since he hadn’t been able to keep hold of it with only one arm. He sets it down next to a wide-eyed, already laughing Winry, pulls the note he’d already prepared in explanation out of his pocket, and hands it to her.

_For the birthday girl in Central :)_

Winry Rockbell is no fool, he knows, so he stands there silently, a slight smile on his face, and waits for her to get it.

She just laughs at first, hefting the monstrous bear up a little before just collapsing to bury her face into its side. “Oh, sir, this- oh, this is wonderful! She’ll love it, I know she will! If I can manage to get it on the train, anyway!” She hefts it up again, beaming at it, then him, still laughing as she tries to struggle with the enormous present. “You didn’t have to do this! What am I supposed to tell Elicia- you’re spoiling her!- that a stranger would do something this nice for h-“

She stops, brow furrowing. Her beaming smile starts to fall.

“...her.”

Slowly, Winry looks at the enormous pink bear. She looks down at the note he’d handed her again.

And then, her eyes narrowing in the suspicion that he knows comes from a life of hardship and heartache, she looks back at him.

“I never told you it was for a girl,” she accuses softly.

He nods once.

And then, his broken heart pounding in his chest and the weight of his new reality crushing him down and the knowledge that this won’t fix _anything_ about what he feels but he still has no choice, Maes reaches up, removes his contacts- then smiles slightly at her again, unfocused green eyes and all.

He doesn’t have to say anything. Which is good, because he can’t. But he doesn’t have to say anything, because that is all that she needs to see before she knows.

* * *

Winry Rockbell clocks him three times with her wrench, shouts enraged, tearful, nearly incoherent rants at him twice, and hugs him once.

The clocks with the wrench are terrifying, the tearful rants make his stomach twist with guilt, and the hug-

That simply hurts.

She hugs him so tight it hurts, because everything hurts, these days, and she cries for him, because as young as she is, she is not naive, and she understands that there is no other choice.

As painful as it is, Maes does not regret telling her.

If she is going to go put her entire life on hold to go back to Central so she can be there for his daughter on her birthday, then he feels it is only right, that he give her the truth.

And, he can just barely admit it to himself that maybe, it’s so he doesn’t have to be quite so alone down here anymore, too.

She hugs him tightly, breathes hitched and unsteady, but she doesn’t cry. When she finally pulls back, cheeks red and eyes wet, she seems to be holding back tears by sheer force of will- and again, just like he had for Alex, he smiles, because he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

“I want to be mad at you,” she hiccups, strained and shaking, and seems to fight hard to swallow the crack in her voice. “I really, really want to be mad at you right now. ...I’m not.” She casts her wet eyes down tremulously, still shaking on the bed, face torn and damp now, hurt and betrayed, but when her lower lip trembles again, it’s to move into a brokenhearted smile. “It’s to keep them safe. Isn’t it? That’s why you’re doing this?”

It hurts to swallow- it always does- and it hurts even more to nod.

 _I’m sorry,_ he writes, in one shaky, weak hand, and that’s all he knows how to mean.

The fact of the matter is, he can do more if he’s dead. He can investigate the plot trying to bring this country down because the homunculi won’t be looking for him. If he’s alive, that puts his family and Roy in danger. That is how it is, and that is all he’s allowing himself to care about.

The way Winry looks at him then is so hard to take he almost can’t bear it.

She stares at him as if she feels sorry for him, is pitying _him-_ his family is who’s suffering right now, he brought this all on himself, he put them all through this and it’s his fault, all of it, and _Winry,_ of all people, shouldn’t feel sorry for him. She knows exactly what his family is going through now, and to find out that he’s been alive all this time and lying to them- god, he _deserves_ for her to be angry at him again. He deserved every blow with the wrench and then some. This is all his fault, he’s the last one to deserve any pity or sympathy-

And Winry is hugging him again, sniffling but dry-eyed against his shoulder, and arms so tight around him he feels more forgiven than he has ever since he first looked in the mirror and saw a stranger looking back.

* * *

Winry still leaves for Central after the surgery, because he insists upon it. She’d wanted to stay with him now, desperately trying to insist that it wasn’t fair to leave him alone through the recovery- but he doesn’t allow it.

He’ll sleep easier, knowing she’s there to help his family- even if he’s sleeping alone.

She takes the pink bear with her, and leaves him again with another tearful, spine-splitting hug.

* * *

Maes sleeps for two days after the surgery. Or- ‘sleeps’. It’s a drugged, miserable thing, and he only knows it’s two days because that’s what he’s told after. Winry attaches his arm, and then he’s drugged into oblivion, and she leaves, and he spends the next two days completely, utterly out of it.

He’s incoherent. Not unconscious. He would’ve preferred the latter.

He sees a lot of things, things that he’s convinced are real at the time and even some time after. Roy: on fire, and laughing at him. Elicia: at his funeral, and then now, standing at his bedside asking who he is, because she doesn’t know him. All the soldiers of the military that had silenced him being killed because he can’t be there to stop the plot trying to take everything down. All of it, every single thing that’s happening to them, and to Elicia, and to Roy- it’s his fault.

When he sees Gracia, he sees her executing him.

When he finally is allowed to wake up again, two days later and with his shoulder alternately dead and screaming at him and an almost constant, low groan tearing its way out his throat, he’s exhausted and sick at heart, and just wants everything to stop.

Winry, however, is back.

He looks at her and thinks he’s imagining her, too, because at the moment he can barely remember the last time he’d seen her or why she’d be there with him at all. He tries to crack out something, a moaned request to _go away,_ but no words come out. There’s nothing but silence in his throat and in a heartstopping instant, he realizes again that _he can’t speak._

He starts to panic.

Winry hears it and looks up, her attention pulled away from the foreign metal hand she’d been inspecting with both of hers. The moment their eyes lock she starts to smile, already getting out of her chair to lean closer to him. “Sir!” she exclaims, the word distant and warped to his exhausted ears. “Sir, how are you? Are you feeling any better?”

He tries to say something again. Anything, _Anything at all._

Silence. His throat _hurts._ His arm _hurts._

The excited, eager smile on Winry’s face slips away and shatters. Guilt presses into her eyes, a helpless sort of thing, and the hand she’d been reaching out to him falls.

 _Stop..._ he tries to say again, but there is just nothing. _Gracia... Elicia... Roy..._

“Right... of course. You can’t...” She looks away again, staring back at the metal hand on the bed. Maes isn’t sure if it’s attached to him or not. “I’m sorry...”

He shakes his head with another muted, impossible sort of moan.

There’s a dark silence, during which he feels like he can’t seem to breathe.

And then, Winry looks back up at him again, a decisive light in her eyes. She picks up the metal hand again- Maes decides he thinks it’s probably his- and lifts one of her tools with it... but before she gets back to work, she speaks up again.

“I brought you back something, from Central,” she tells him quietly. “As an apology, for having to leave straight after your surgery. I... hope you like it.” She nods to his left with something curious on her face, something oddly hopeful, he thinks, then returns back to her work without another word.

It takes Maes a few seconds to decipher the words, a few seconds to remember how to turn his head, and a few seconds more to decide he wants to. Winry says nothing during his inaction, just keeps her gaze focused on his arm, and finally, with a heavy, exhausted sigh, he wrenches his head off the pillow, and looks towards where she’d pointed.

His heart stops, then is abruptly racing so fast in his chest he feels like he can’t breathe all over again.

A picture.

She’s brought him back a picture.

Of...

_Oh my god._

 

It was taken by Winry herself; he can tell, because she’s nowhere in the glossy image, and he can also tell it was a secret, because no one’s looking at the camera. He thinks he might just prefer it that way, and stares slowly, heart rising in his throat, at the scene she had captured just for him.

Elicia’s birthday party.

Ed and Al are there, and he instantly just wants to run to go and thank those wonderful boys because he _knows_ they’re there to try and look after his family the same way Winry had, and they deserve more gratitude than he can ever give them. Al’s helping Gracia carry a mountain of shiny wrapped presents over to the table while Ed looks like he’s just helped Elicia to stand on a chair and waits behind her guardedly, hands held out in case she ever even starts to fall.

Roy is there, too. With one too many wrinkles in his shirt and a dip in his just visible collarbone that says he’s not been eating and lingering, almost haunted shadows under his dark eyes- but he’s there. He hasn’t been sleeping. He obviously feels horrible. He’s look tired- no, _exhausted._ Maes can’t help it; his protective instincts suddenly tingle and guilt rises and he just wants to throw himself on the first train back to Central to go there and take care of him, because god, he obviously needs it right now- but Roy’s still _there._ He’s there at his five year old’s birthday party and he’s watching Elicia and he’s trying to smile for them even though Maes knows how much it hurts him and he abruptly loves him so much his heart hurts.

Gracia and Elicia, of course, are there, too.

Gracia, carrying a present back to the table and watching Elicia with a soft, gentle smile. She looks tired, almost as tired as Roy. There’s a sadness in her eyes he’s not sure he’s ever seen before, either, a quiet sadness haunting her eyes and smile that’s almost more than he can take. But she looks down at Elicia, and she smiles, and he knows that she is going to do everything she can to be everything she needs to be for their daughter.

It’s the first time he’s been able to see her like this, for who she really is, the woman he’d fallen in love with and not the bloody, smiling thing the homunculi had made for him- it’s the first time since being shot that he can actually look at his wife again and, _god,_ it hurts. But he’d needed it. It hurts, and it hurts worse when he sees how much he’s hurt her, but he loves her too much to ever look away, and suddenly his broken heart pangs just a little bit back together again.

And Elicia...

Elicia looks happy.

She just looks happy.

Like all these people who had come out that day and tried their very hardest to give her just a few hours to forget had succeeded, and at least in this one instant Winry has captured for him, she looks happy.

The enormous pink bear is sitting on the table right beside her, one of her hands hanging onto its ear while she reaches for another present with the other, and his heart throbs in anguish again.

He doesn’t ask what happened before or after this picture. He doesn’t ask if Gracia ever cried, or if Roy ducked out early with shaking hands and a trembling mouth. He doesn’t ask if Elicia ever tried to get Gracia to tell her when Daddy was coming to the party, or if she ever waited by the phone or the door for a man who wasn’t coming, or what happened later that night when she realizes there’s no present from him because there never will be again because he is _gone._

He doesn’t want to know, so he doesn’t ask.

He just slowly reaches out with the hand he still has to touch the picture with slow, trembling fingers. His heart is broken, and his eyes, he knows, are filling with tears.

Winry, beside him, keeps her head down, hair shielding her downcast eyes as she works on his cold and unfeeling metal left arm, giving him the privacy she can.

He wants to hug her again. He wants to thank her, for giving him what suddenly now feels like a lifeline.

But he can’t hug her, because he can’t move his arm, and he can’t thank her, because he can’t speak, so he does the next best thing, and smiles at her downturned head, and then looks back to the picture he’s trying so hard not to cry on, and runs his hand again down the side.


	2. What He Hears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the comments/kudos!!! Pretty short chapter here, and Winry's not actually in this one (it originally took place before Maes got automail and met her). She will be in all the rest of them, though!

Being mute makes things much easier, actually.

Comparatively.

It buys him time, whenever he’s spoken to. He has to always remember the right lies and the right things to say, and the fact that he just can’t answer straight away gives him the few seconds he needs as he scrambles through his mind for his new backstory and name. It lets him to lie more convincingly, too; it’s harder to tell someone’s not telling the truth when it’s just pencil paper he has to work with. Now he can just slowly scrawl out to the nurse shaking him awake him from a nightmare that he was fine, and it was just a dream of the supposed car accident that had landed him here, and she believes him.

She never even guesses it was a remembrance of his wife executing him.

Once he’s finally released from the hospital, though, and at last emerges into Rush Valley, he realizes something else: it also turns him into a ghost.

Before- yes, yes, _before,_ in what his life has become now, everything is either the rose-tinted, beautiful, beloved Before, or what his beautiful life had deteriorated into Now, this murky, miserable, cold and lonely pit- before, Maes had been good at his job because he was underestimated. People thought he was just the office goof, a silly idiot who bragged about his family but didn’t really _work_ or care for climbing the promotion ladder. It helped him. When people underestimated him, they would talk and gossip to him about anything and everything, because he wasn’t anything more than the unassuming office idiot. They loved talking to him because they though he wasn’t a threat; so many things by so many ignorant generals and their secretaries, officers just venting to him because they think they can- and then he’d turn right around, amass every last bit of gathered information, and help Roy’s rise to the top with it.

Now, it’s not that he’s being underestimated, so much as just... ignored.

At first, he’s a novelty. Even in a place like Rush Valley, filled with amputees, him and his brand new burn scar and lack of voice is an oddity that sticks out like a sore thumb- ironic, since Armstrong’s intention in hiding him here had been just the opposite. Yes, at first, he is interesting, but it doesn’t take long for people to realize that he has very little to say. Even when they wait at rapt attention for him to slowly write out his answers to their questions, when they learn he’s as humdrum and nondescript as the rest of them, just with a little worse luck, they lose that interest.

And when they lose that interest, they also lose him.

It’s not intentional. It’s not that they’re particularly rude or impolite. But no one _really_ wants to sit around and wait for him to have to write out everything that he wants to say, hand slipping and sliding in painstaking, sloppy arcs across the paper because until he learns how to use the metal deadweight on his shoulder, he only has the one. A single sentence takes him a minute or more to get out. Just a simple _wow, what happened to you?_ can take five.

He learns to see the muted, uncomfortable regret in their eyes whenever a question is asked and they realize what that means, that Maes has to awkwardly start writing out an answer and the conversation is just instantly ground to a dead halt until he finished. Like they already wished they hadn’t asked it, but they’re a little too polite to stop him now, but not polite enough to hide the impatient silence they suffer through as he struggles to etch out whatever meager, drab thing he has to say.

Slowly, they stop talking to him at all.

Maes can’t really blame them.

It’s ironic again. Unassuming before because he’d never shut up; now he’s unassuming because of just the opposite. He’s not even _there_ , to them. Word spreads about him the way it’s spread about the psycho, four-automail limbed freak who liked to challenge passerbys to fights and the woman with the automail hand who roams the streets drunk at ten on the morning, on the dot, every morning. He’s _the mute._ Politely ignore him. And he _is_ politely ignored, to the point it’s just as if he doesn’t even exist.

It’s helpful, in a way. He gets to gather information again. No one looks at him and sees anything more than a struggling cripple; they certainly don’t ever dream he’s a military officer in hiding and working to bring down the scheme threatening to bring down this country. Which, of course, is rather the point.

It’s also intensely lonely, and Maes slowly finds the black hole of unsettled misery growing and growing inside him until he can barely stand to even go outside at all.

He just wants someone to _talk to._ Not about the homunculi anymore, even, not about Bradley or the military- just someone to sit down and actually _talk_ to him, still treat him like he’s a functioning human being with something to say that’s worth listening to, whether he has his voice or not. He just wants the luxury of being able to have a mundane conversation again. He’d loved being the person everybody talked to back home, talked to about anything and everything and nothing, and that makes the loneliness sting all the more now that _no one_ does.

It’s days like these that he misses Roy more than ever, sometimes to the point that he can barely stand it.

One day, he _can’t_ stand it, and though it’s the most monumentally stupid thing he’s done in months, he picks up the phone and he calls him.

He regrets it immediately.

_“Colonel Mustang here.”_

He regrets it _immediately_ , and he regrets it even _more_ at the sharp pang of anguish that stabs through him at the heart-breakingly familiar voice.

_“Hello, Colonel Mustang here? Hello?”_

What does it matter? Even if he could risk speaking to Roy, even if his best friend knowing he’s still alive was worth that danger- what does it matter?

Nothing’s changed.

He still can’t talk to Roy. He can sit here, and listen to Roy talk to him, and he physically can’t say a word back.

It hurts so much worse than it had just a minute ago, and Maes, quietly, like he must do everything nowadays, hangs up.

He doesn’t even dare consider calling Gracia. He knows it would hurt even worse- but more than that, worries that if he ever stops to give the prospect a mere second’s consideration, he won’t have the strength to say no.


	3. What He Sees

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having a daily update schedule is so strange. I keep honestly forgetting I need to update this! If ever I miss a chapter, that's honestly probably what happened ;-; thanks for the kudos/comments!!!

“Hi,” Winry tells him, smiling at him in greeting as he comes to stand in her doorway for his weekly therapy appointment. “How’re you doing today?”

He just raises a hand in greeting, the same way he always does, the only way he has to answer anymore. This time, though, he raises the metal one, not brand new anymore but finally learning to agree with him and do what he wants; there’s only a little twinge of pain in shoulder as he lifts it up, and Winry, in response, beams.

“I told you!” she crows, nearly bouncing in her seat, “I told you it’d get easier! How’s it feel, how’s it feel?!” She actually does bolt upright now, hurrying over to inspect where the shiny metal limb meets skin.

Maes shrugs dutifully, again, not really sure how to answer, and carefully rolls up his sleeve for her to see her handiwork. It’s been a week or two since he’d gotten this arm, and he’s still not quite used to seeing it there, but at least it doesn’t turn his stomach anymore. It just looks alien, not a part of himself, and he watches as Winry starts to look over the ports; the illusion isn’t helped by the fact that he knows- can _see-_ she’s touching something that is, technically, a part of him now, but he can’t feel a thing.

At his pseudo-answer, Winry just nods slowly, bright eyes still focused on the metal. “I told you the pain would get a lot better, too,” she points out, as if she’d somehow guessed that’s what his shrug had meant, then suddenly laughs. “Look at you! You’re just like Ed!” She whacks him on the shoulder gently, or as gently as one can whack, with a wrench, then tugs hard on his sleeve to point at all the oil stains. “I told to be careful, that’d it’d get everywhere- but you men never listen, do you?”

This time he can’t help a breathless, silent little laugh as he lets Winry maneuver him to sit down in the, by now, familiar patient’s chair. It’s not that he hadn’t been careful- but, god, the automail oil really does get _everywhere._ He’s pretty sure half his clothes have stains already- some of them, even those he hasn’t worn yet. It’s not that that’s odd, around here; most everyone in Rush Valley is stained with the stuff to the point he almost can’t smell it anymore- but it _is_ something that he finds himself just a small bit ironic; Gracia would’ve killed him by now, and then continued to kill him, when he’d just proceeded to ruin all his clothes and half of hers.

It’s a little too soon for him to find that amusing, but still, it’s something.

“Ed, he did the same thing, all the time,” she tells him absentmindedly, head down as she sorts through all her tools for something. “It’s why he wears all that black, now. He kept ruining all his clothes until Grandma just told him she wasn’t going to fix them anymore; either he learned how to get oil out, or he wore messed up clothes. He gave up and just started wearing all black, all the time.” Finally locating the tool she needed, what looks to be an unusually large pen, Winry turns back around and pushes her stool across the room in the same motion, pushing it into his hand. “We’re doing fine motor skills today. Hold that. Anyway, so you may not have noticed, but that’s why Ed reeks of oil all the time- it’s not his arm and leg, really, it’s just his clothes. They’re covered in stains, but you just can’t see them, because they’re black. You should invest in some yourself.”

She tosses him another grin before fetching a pen of her own, to show him how to do the exercises. Apparently, fine motor skills means handwriting, and rolling the pen around in his hand, rotating it around his fingers, sliding his thumb down it- all inordinately easy tasks. Or, so he’d thought.

He feels extremely pathetic the first time he tries to emulate Winry’s easy, slow flip of the pen around her forefinger and thumb. His thumb does flex, but so violently he nearly sends the pen flying, his forefinger gives a spastic twitch, and the pen just drops down to the desk with an empty clatter.

Winry laughs even as he flushes, reaching over to hand it back to him. “Don’t worry; happens all the time. Just wait until you get to strength exercises! You’ll be shattering glass all over the place!”

She beams again, wriggling with excitement, eyes already bright with enthusiasm at the very prospect. Maes, his mouth suddenly dry, moves an inch back, and is once again reminded of Ed’s oft proclamations that his mechanic is absolutely insane.

It’s another few unproductive, embarrassing minutes later that Winry distracts him again, seeming to be trying to take his mind off just how damn _hard_ it is to make this awkward, heavy, painful limb to do what he wants. “You know, sign language would probably be another great exercise you could do for this! Have you started learning it yet? I don’t know much about it but it’d probably be really good for small finger movements...”

Maes’ half-smile, still in place from before, suddenly freezes. The pen clumsily clunking around his fingers goes still.

Right. Sign language.

That’s... another thing that he’s been putting off.

For weeks, actually.

Unlike the automail, Maria hadn’t called him out on it; he thinks it’s because it just hasn’t occurred to her. He’s been lucky enough not many others have mentioned it to him, either. It’s not that he’s particularly averse to it, really; at least it’s not like automail. It can’t hurt him to try and learn it.

That doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t want to.

Winry’s expectant smile dulls at his lack of an answer. Her bright eyes dim and she slowly lowers her own pen, frowning at him uncertainly just long enough for him to manage to prod himself back into assured confidence. He waves her off with another bold grin, sure of himself all over again; this is yet another problem that he just needs to deal with himself, but that she has to stay out of, because she’s already worrying enough over him and he can’t bear making her worry even more.

He’s worrying _everyone_ enough right now.

Maes hurriedly grabs for the pen he’s taken to slipping up his sleeve like his push-dagger; it’s as close to his side and always present as his wedding ring is _supposed_ to be, and he hates it. He hurriedly writes out an easy excuse; that there’s not any point to him learning it, really, since he can understand others perfectly well, and if he ever desperately needs someone to understand him he can just write it down. There’s not really a _reason_ to do it, anyway; who around here would even know sign language well for him to talk to? Besides, the harder it is for him to talk, the better, in case he lets any part of who he really is slip...

Winry reads his reasoning with strange look on her face, one that looks increasingly uncertain the further she gets into it. When she finally reaches the end, there’s no smile left on her face at all, and the eyes that hesitantly meet his are shadowed with a worry that makes him jerk his gaze away, brand new, aching metal hand tightening into a fist that hurts.

“You’re just... not going to learn it at all?” she hedges after a moment; he can hear the disappointment in her voice, if not the judgment. “But you... what about when you go back home, to Miss Gracia? How would you ever be able to talk to her again? You’d just have to-“ Her voice drops lower, shifting into confusion, “just- write everything down?”

His heart lurches painfully in his chest, squeezing so tightly it suddenly hurts to breathe, and his hands, once again, go cold.

Maes looks even more severely away, swallowing the lump in his throat, and does not respond.

Gracia.

The one reason he has to actually try and embrace this, so that when he finally stands face to face with her again, he won’t be a devastated mess but he’ll actually have cobbled his life back together into something that can support Gracia. Gracia is the one reason he has to fight for this automail and learn how to talk without a voice and etch out a new way of life so she can have something to come back to except this dead, messed up ghost of a husband who’d broken her heart.

Except, that’s the problem.

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever even see her again.

That’s just the way of things. He wants to be optimistic and hopeful, he knows Alex and Maria are, he knows Winry would be, if he’d told her- but the fact of the matter is, this conspiracy with the homunculi has been going on for centuries. It started long before he was born, and there is a very good chance that it is going to continue long after he dies, no matter what he tries to do to stop it.

And he may never see his family again because of it.

Ever.

And, he’s known this whole time, that’s why he’s not able to make himself learn to speak again.

Because he doesn’t know if they’ll ever be someone there for him to speak to.

Maes doesn’t write anything down again for the rest of the session. He barely even looks at Winry, and the few times he’s able to make himself do it, she looks so withdrawn and shaken he can barely stand it.

* * *

Two days later, on what he knows to be her day off, Winry marches into his shabby bachelor’s apartment, hauls him out of bed, and smacks a textbook down right in front of him before he can so much as gather his wits about him enough to ask what’s going on.

“You,” she tells him, “are going to learn sign language.”

He opens his mouth, more just because he’s stunned than anything else, and gapes at her.

Winry points a finger at him, waving it back and forth like he’s a naughty, misbehaving child, and instructs him further, with a voice that brokers zero room for argument. “We’re going to learn it together, is what I mean. And it’ll be _really_ embarrassing for you if you can’t keep up with me, and I’ll know if you’re not trying- and trust me, you won’t like that.” She smiles brightly, one confident, wicked smile, then sits back on his sagging, lonely couch, arms folded tightly, and continues to give him that unyielding, fierce grin. “So. Any questions?”

It doesn’t really matter that Maes is still sitting there, too stunned to reply, because even if he’d had a question he wouldn’t have been able to ask it. Slowly, disbelievingly, he shakes his head.

Every single thing Ed has ever told anyone about his crazy mechanic is now clearly, undeniably, absolutely true.

“Good!” Winry exclaims, all a sharp smile and bright-eyed once again. She flips the textbook, _Sign Language for Beginners,_ open on the table, pushes it more so it’s centered between them, then swivels around to face it and once again gives him the biggest, most confident grin he’s ever seen. “So let’s get started, then.”

And, once again, Maes finds that most of the decisions in his life now that are made to improve it, he does them because a teenage girl has ordered him too.

* * *

Sign language, as he’d predicted it would be, is a sufficiently miserable, depressing affair.

At the same time, however, it’s ended up as one of the only things he’s able to look forward to each day.

Like Winry had told him, it ends up being a very good exercise for his new hand. It also hurts like hell; not even ten minutes in sometimes and he’s already having to stop, breathing through clenched teeth and stuck staring as the metal hand twitches and spasms uselessly in his lap. It’s ridiculous; he and Winry sit here teaching themselves out of textbooks, and it quickly gets to the point that he thinks whatever language it is they’re signing is so mangled no one can understand it but themselves. Which completely defeats the point, because he still can’t talk to anybody but Winry, because if by some miracle he ever makes it home again, he _still_ won’t be able to talk to Gracia, but-

But it’s worth it.

It’s worth it, becauseit so often ends in Winry trying to whack at him with the book, or with her collapsed into the corner of the couch with the both of them trying not to laugh, nearly ridiculously hysterical over how badly they’re mangling every word they sign. It’s worth it, because it’s the one moment of mundane normality he has; most days spent lurking in seedy underground bars or hunting through dusty libraries in the dark for the homunculi’s trail, these few hours he spends with Winry are suddenly the only moment he has left in his life that _isn’t_ a life-threatening race to save Amestris and his family and he loves them all the more for it.

It’s worth it, when they’ve learned just enough for Winry to start signing to him- signing the little tidbits she’s grasping through the grapevine about Gracia and Elicia.

And then, some days, it’s still not worth it.

* * *

It’s some time past nine in the morning, well over an hour after when he and Winry usually starts, and a month after she’d all but browbeated him into working with her in the first place, when he wakes up on his couch, and to Winry cleaning up.

He wishes he didn’t remember why. It’s embarrassing and humiliating enough as it is.

But he does remember why, and the sting of it feels like a slap to the face even as his cheeks flush, and his stomach sinks with a leaden knot of ashamed embarrassment so potent he feels sick.

Winry doesn’t say anything. He’d woken up noisily enough, shifting about and sighing in protest at his sore back and the metal arm that always aches and his pounding head, so she knows, but she doesn’t say anything to him, or even look at him.

She just keeps moving about and cleaning up.

Her back is to him, ponytail swishing angrily with every turn she makes, every last motion stiff and precise.

It’s how he knows she’s angry.

Maes swallows silently, equal parts guilt and regret intermingling inside him until he’s so miserable he can’t stand it.

He gets up, turning his back without a word, because he has no choice, and retreats away to make an at least passable attempt at cleaning himself up. Winry still pays him no mind, but he can see in how tightly her hands clench when she hears him move, she’s not at all as unbothered as she’d like to pretend.

It’s once again intensely humiliating, being looked after like this, and unsettling. He doesn’t like that she’s doing it, and he doesn’t like that, on some level, he probably needs it. Nothing about this is okay. She’s just a teenage girl, for god’s sake, and an orphan at that, one who’s in a constant state of worrying if her two closest friends in the world are about to get themselves killed. She’s not _supposed_ to be trying to help him like this; not a grown man who brought all of this on himself- and Maes can’t stand being taken care of in the first place, it’s supposed to be the other way around, he’s supposed to be the one helping take care of her, and Gracia, and Roy, and Elicia-

But here she is, anyway. Silently cleaning up without so much as a glance in his direction.

Maes puts his contacts in, glaring at himself in the mirror all the while.He washes off his face without looking at the blond hair that’s growing more familiar by the day, and throws on clothes not quite as wrinkled or dirty as the ones from yesterday without looking at the new scars or automail. Then, guilt still settling in his stomach, he tentatively forces himself back out to where Winry is now stiffly stacking up the files he’d left scattered around last night in a fit of hopeless, fruitless disappointment.

He hates that he has to tap her shoulder to just get her attention.

 _I’m sorry,_ he signs uncomfortably.

Winry scowls, something he can’t quite identify flickering through her eyes before she turns very quickly away. She doesn’t even address the silent apology, instead pointing at the small collection of mediocre whiskey she’s pushed together on a counter. “Next time I pour it out,” she informs him harshly- and the deja vu nearly slaps him across the face.

Which isn’t fair, because, even though the comparison is too close for him to like, this isn’t like Roy after Ishval. Not at all. He has his case all made out, even- he just can’t actually _argue_ it.

His arm just hurts. That’s all it is. He’d just had no real grasp on how much automail _hurts-_ and he swears it gets worse with each passing day, the pain growing just as his mobility and strength does. Winry had cut off his painkillers after just the first week, something she was apparently known for, in Rush Valley, and he very distinctly remembers the first whiskey last night being intended only as just enough self-medication to help himself sleep. That was _all._

The fact that the second had had very little to do with his arm, he decides is irrelevant, no matter how sick at heart it makes him feel.

 _I just wanted to_ sleep, _you bastard,_ Roy had hissed at him, so many times he’d lost count. Just wanted to sleep, he’d say, after Maes had found him all but passed out in his own sick after they’d returned home from Ishval, and, countless times after, Maes had turned his back on his best friend’s surly glare to pour out every drop of alcohol he’d been able to find in the house.

Just wanted to sleep.

The fact that this is all bitterly ironic, because he’s now got yet another thing to apologize to Roy for, he decides he also just needs to ignore.

He reluctantly helps Winry clean in enforced silence, because it doesn’t feel right to stand there and watch her do it alone, but he knows by now he won’t get her to stop. He feels horrible, making her waste her one day off doing this, but gone are the days when he can just sit her down so he and Gracia can take care of everything, so he just helps her do it instead.

She still doesn’t look at him, so he can’t say he’s sorry again.

He hates that. He hates that even with the language Winry has tried so hard to give him back, he still can’t say _anything_ unless the person he’s with wants him to.

Slowly, surely, silently, they get the room cleaned up. Clothes are folded, dishes stacked, the remains of the whiskey put neatly away. Maes takes care of the papers himself; the papers he now only vaguely remembers pouring over the night before, increasingly frantic and helpless and _miserable_ at the lack of leads and the sheer enormity of the task before him and the impossibility of solving it. He just glares at the maps, the bloody arrays, the histories of war, then just swiftly sweeps them together and slaps them back on the floor face down, face flushing again with anger and shame. He keeps them from her eyes out of habit to slip them back into his secret stash of military files where they belong, where he knows they’ll be drawn out again tonight.

But he can’t do that now. And, shoulders slumped and both hands suddenly cold, Maes steels himself, and turns his back to the papers to face Winry again.

The mechanic is sitting on his couch again, finally still. She’s still not looking at him, blue eyes averted- but it’s not out of stubbornness this time.

Her isn’t angry anymore.

He wishes it would be, because the uncertain sadness that’s finally worked its way to the front is infinitely worse. His stomach drops with a pang.

 _I’m sorry,_ he signs miserably again. Even though she’s not looking straight at him, he knows she can see it.

She still doesn’t say anything. She still looks as miserable as Maes knows he feels.

Slowly, tentatively, Maes moves closer to join her in sitting down. She seems to soften a little at that, more cracks in her stubborn facade that let the mournful emotion behind it leak through, and though he’d expected it, it still makes him feel all the worse. He pauses for several moments, swallowing tightly, then looks down at his mismatched hands as he struggles to find the words.

 _Why are you doing this for me?_ he asks at last. _All of it?_ He waves a desperate, aching metal hand around the room; he can’t say it, he doesn’t know the words yet, but he doesn’t mean just this, or today. _Everything._ The automail, the sign language, the being here when they both know even that much can put her in danger, when he understands how _hard_ it has to be for her to try and support someone like him when she knows _exactly_ how his family must be feeling right now, what he’s put them through, coming back here day after day-

Just being his friend, when down here, he truly has no one else.

He can’t say it, but Winry understands what he means, all the same. He can see it in the way her mouth slips into a frown again and her eyes drift away, landing on their scattered notes of sign language over the table.

“Because you made me stay with you the first time you met me,” she tells him at last. She folds her arms with another frown, this one almost embarrassed as she averts her eyes again. “And every time you saw me after. You didn’t even know anything about me except that I was friends with Ed and Al, but that didn’t matter to you. You still just... took me in, whenever you got the chance to. And not because I was just a kid, but just because you actually wanted to. ...No one had ever done that for me since before Mom and Dad left for the war.” She pauses again, seeming to almost withdraw into herself. Slowly, her hands drop to clench tightly together in her lap. “...You didn’t have to do that.”

This time, when Maes is speechless, it’s not because he doesn’t have a voice to say anything with.

He sits there wordlessly for several moments, starting to shake his head, even though he just doesn’t know the signs yet for what he wants to say. That it wasn’t such a big deal- that she shouldn’t feel obligated- god, he’d just been doing the right thing, he’d never meant for it to turn out like this- and he’s never been more touched in his life, he thinks, but-

“So I know I don’t have to do this, either,” Winry says suddenly, head jerking back around to meet his gaze again with fierce eyes abruptly like fire. “I know that. I’m doing it because I _want_ to.” That said, she promptly sits forward once again, all traces of uncertainty wiped away clean from her face, and when she flips open the book in front of them this time it’s with a perfectly steady hand. “So _next_ time your arm hurts, you better do what Ed does and just work through it,” _idiot_ , she signs with an aggressive grin- and she doesn’t need a wrench in hand to make the threat clear. “For now, let’s just forget about it and go on.”

He’s not given a choice once again, but this time, Maes doesn’t need one.

He doesn’t quite manage the bold smile that he wants as he moves forward to join her- it’s almost there, but just like her stubborn facade before, he knows it’s weak and just a little broken. But it’s genuine, all the same, and as he joins her, he resolves that Winry is never going to walk in on him like this again.

It’s not that he blames Roy, at all- but he _does_ remember how increasingly hard it had been, week after week to find his best friend like that, and feel like he was making no progress at all. That it had hurt all the more when it had just kept happening, and Maes had felt helpless and powerless to do anything but stand by and watch as his best friend fell apart. And he knows Winry doesn’t deserve to feel that. So he’ll grit his teeth and keep on, if not for himself, then for everyone he’s left behind back in Central, and for the young, bright-eyed mechanic sitting there beside him, giving him far more than he has any right to ask for and for no other reason except that she wants to do it.


	4. What He Smells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> random chapter is random. boop. this fic seems to be in the pattern of big important chapter with development - tiny random chapter haha. Tomorrow should be the last one (for this installment, not the series), with lots more stuff going on! See you then!

For a long time, the smell of bleach makes Maes want to throw up.

It reminds him of interminable weeks in the hospital, trying to adjust to his new life and new body at the same time.So long spent enfolded in loose hospital pajamas and trying to balance without an arm or learn how to make people understand what he wants without a voice and sleep without Gracia and live without Eliica, so many days ill and weak and in pain. He grows sick of many things during that time; the color white, the sight of blood, the taste of the fruit smoothies they’d thought were equal to liquid meals- and, god, the smell of bleach. The ubiquitous smell of sharp, pungent bleach.

It was just his luck, of course, that not even two weeks after finally being released, he finds himself bent over his bathroom sink, elbow deep in the stuff, and trying not to gag as he struggles to one-handedly paint it into his hair.

He has to dye his hair. His roots can _never_ risk showing; no one here can ever have any reason to even entertain the thought that he’s not a natural blond. He has to bleach the roots every two weeks or so as his natural, darker brown starts growing in again. Maes is, frankly, pretty sure that he’s going to kill his hair doing this, but at this point-

At this point, he really doesn’t have many other options.

He clumsily re-dyes his hair the first time. Afterwards, he can barely re-enter his bathroom for three days, the stench is so strong- he suspects he used three times the amount of bleach he was supposed to- and he can’t bring himself to clean up the messes he made, either. Every cleaning agent reeks of hospital and antiseptic and just things he doesn’t ever want to smell again.

He reckons, rather morosely, that it’s a good thing he can’t be with Gracia right now. To stick her with all the household cleaning just because he was a wreck really wouldn’t be fair of him.

He’s not being a very good husband right now, anyway, though, so he decides that’s rather beside the point.

He slightly less clumsily re-dyes his hair the second time. It’s now been a little over a month since he’s left the hospital, and the smell bothers him a little less. He manages to more accurately measure out the bleach this time, and it’s less stifling that way, too, but he still can’t stand it.

He’s almost used to the smell by the time he’s dexterous enough to attempt using his new automail to help with the process.Having two hands helps enormously, and he’s almost pathetically proud of himself when he beholds his reflection the next morning, and is delighted to find it’s the best job at disguising himself he’s ever done.

The next time he sees her, Winry is much less impressed, and he finds himself dazed in the chair from a wrench turned club as she stalks around the room, fuming and irate, and begins to yell at him.

“What were you thinking?! My precious hand has a _hole in it!_ Do you realize how hard I worked on that hand, how much time I spent making sure everything was just right, and you- _you- BLEACH?!”_ she nearly screeches, still pinwheeling so violently it takes all of the balance Maes has been relearning to dodge the blows from the wrench. _“You’re worse than Ed!”_

Not for the first time, Maes finds himself desperately regretting the fact that he can’t speak, because no matter how much he wants to, he can’t manage to apologize and hopefully soothe her deadly wrath.

Bleach, it turns out, is quite corrosive, which is a little bit of a problem when he can’t feel his hand to know he’s eating a hole through the inner workings of it.

Once again, Winry is far less than impressed by this excuse.

“Men. _Men!”_ Crying out a wordless breath of exasperation, the young mechanic stalks around the work room, searching for the spare parts that she needs while he frantically signs _I’m sorry, I’m sorry!_ over and over. “Is that Y chromosome just full of bull-headedness and insensitivity to others’ hard work? Well, I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have do like Ed, and live without a hand for a week. And you’d just started to get good at using it, too!” She actually looks put out, here, mournful for his own sake, and Maes manages to make himself look properly chastised, as well- because she _does_ have a very good point.

He’ll take being compared to Ed, though. He knows she doesn’t mean it, but from what he knows of the little prodigy, he’ll just take it as a compliment and be glad for it.

Winry sits him down, a teenage girl barely half his size but ferocious, and Maes, still unbalanced and if he’s being honest with himself, ill and weak more often than not; she has to reach up to grab his shoulder but pushes him straight down to one of her patient chairs, grabs the arm he can’t feel, and slams it harshly down on the table. Again, he can’t feel it,but he still finds himself flinching a little, but she gives him a no-nonsense look and sits down right across from him, already reaching for her tools. “I’m taking your hand privileges away. You don’t get a hand for the week.”

It’s an odd sight, watching as a screwdriver dives straight into what’s supposed to be his wrist and not feeling a thing. He shrugs carefully, making sure not to move the arm at all, and glances away, chewing on his lip. No big loss, he wants to say; it wasn’t as if he’d learned how to do all that much with the hand yet anyway.

He wants to say a lot of things.

Winry glances up at him again as she takes apart the arm, her eyes sharp and her voice still biting. “You’re going to keep doing the strength exercises, though. I’ll show you how to do them afterwards without the hand. Trust me, you’ll feel a lot better after you get the new hand if you keep up the rehab that you can over the week instead of slacking off.”

He signs _thank you_ to her, and starts to sign something else. He even makes it through- clumsily, but still- the first complicated motion before he starts to form the second, only to realize he’s missing the hand he needs to complete it. He finds himself trying again, a half-hearted, beleaguered sort of attempt, trying to send signals to a hand that’s currently malfunctioning and almost dead, because it’s still so strange for him to _not_ have a hand to move that he can’t stop himself.

The hand doesn’t move, his words are left unsaid, and Maes slowly just looks away, shoulders slumping a little and gaze down.

The hand hurts now, too. Not the automail itself, but phantom pains; like his brain just knows he’d been careless with the bleach, and is now making him pay for it by making it hurt.

Winry’s fallen silent, her earlier lecture dying when he’d tried, failed, and given up. She’s still working, and she’s still staring at him, but again, Maes can’t bring himself to meet her eyes like this; to be yet another person she has to take care of. He’s not supposed to be a burden on _anyone._ He’s the one who takes care of people. Gracia, Elicia, Roy, always, but then Ed, Al, and Winry whenever they’re near, and his subordinates when they need it, and- and just- he can’t _stand_ being the one to be taken care _of,_ and he especially can’t stand that he’s burdening Winry with it, too.

But he can’t say any of those things, so all he does is shut his eyes, and breathe.

Winry works on his arm still, and, after a long pause, she starts to talk, too. Quieter than before, as if her anger’s run out, and she tells him that, later, when she’s finished with his new hand, they’ll figure out a way that he can use the bleach and keep it safe. She tells him, wistfully, sadly, in a voice heavy with nostalgia, about how Ed had had to learn how to braid his hair like this- a task alone that Maes now has monumental new respect for the boy for- and promises that, if they work hard, they’ll figure out something for him, too.

He keeps his eyes closed, smelling the sharp, familiar sting of automail oil now, and lets himself think about Ed. Ed had done this, he reminds himself steadily. Over and over again, he thinks it. Ed had done it just like this. The phantom pains, the learning how to use a new limb, the automail surgery, the big gaping hole carved in his life where family was supposed to be. They’re not exactly the same; in some ways, Ed was much worse off, in others, Maes thinks he’d honestly give up his own leg, too, if he could just be closer to his wife and daughter the way Ed had at least still had Al- but Ed had done this all before, and survived.

He breathes in the smell of the automail oil, and he remembers that, and survives.


	5. What He Tastes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Next installment'll be in a more traditional format, and as promised, will showcase Roy making his way down to Rush Valley. Full of feels and angst and such. For now, here is this. I've ended up with a pretty bad cold so not really sure what I just proofread, but... here we are... thanks to everyone who's read/left kudos or comments!!! <3
> 
> And, go [here](https://dailymaeshughes.tumblr.com/image/167751586072) for an awesome animation for this chapter! (took me ten damn tries to make that hyperlink work. You better go check it out, after all of that!!!)

Maria Ross and Alex Louis’ visits and messages grow rarer, the better Maes gets. This is the crucial period, when the homunculi will be watching most closely, and though it’s intensely lonely and isolating and _hard_ for him to try and adjust without any contact- he knows it’s how things have to be. They simply can not risk it. He knows things will change in a few years, when the scrutiny is gone- but for now, these sporadic, coded messages that come his way as rare as a blue moon is just what he’ll have to live with.

The fact that, most likely, in a few years, he _will_ still be here, laboring under a name and appearance and a life that isn’t his, and his family and friends will still think that he’s dead, is what’s most sobering about all of this.

He tries not to let himself dwell on it.

Maes especially tries not to dwell on just where Gracia might be in a few years. He tries very hard _not_ to face facts, to not acknowledge that just statistically, financially, logistically, it’s really most likely that she’ll get married again.

Because that feels like being punched in the gut. Several times in a row. Until he’s bleeding on the inside and it hurts to even breathe.

He especially tries not to dwell on the fact that Elicia is still so, so _young_ now- and there is a real chance that even in just a few years, she might not remember him.

Regardless of it all, not too long after Maes had gotten his new arm, he finds himself lucky enough to have actually set up a meeting with his former subordinates. As coincidence has it, Alex is down here for State Alchemist business while Maria’s carrying out a favor for a superior. As far as they can tell, it really is all serendipitous, but they still approach it all with the most extreme caution. They plan for a week, scoping out the very best place to keep their meeting inconspicuous, and when the night finally comes Maria and Alex meet up early whereas Maes waits two hours to follow them, even then heading in through a back entrance and still waiting half an hour once inside before he actually makes contact.

The place is, apparently, connected to the Armstrongs in some way; some relative of a servant that’s been in the family for generations, like everything else those people are involved in. Convenient, for them; it’s alsoone of the places he’s become sort of known at, around here- the staff have stopped giving the strange mute second looks and just know him on sight, now. They seem to have worked with the Armstrongs enough to know to turn a blind eye to the two officers waiting at a corner table, and when Maes finally gets up to join them, they just continue ignore him like they have been this whole time.

He’s tired of being ignored. Even if it’s indescribably helpful, instrumental, even, in hiding in Rush Valley as a dead man, and it has to happen- he is very, very tired of being ignored.

It’s the first time either has seen him since the hospital, now weeks ago. They’re staring. They’re trying not to, and it’s not that obvious, but they’re both doing it. Sometimes at his new arm, sometimes at his throat, sometimes just at him in general, trying to see how he’s adjusting and if everything’s all right. The concern in both of them is so obvious it’s like being screamed at, and he swallows another gulp of his drink before very pointedly tugging his sleeve down over his metal hand in an order to cut it out. The drink has long sense lost its taste, reminding him of nothing but the bitter taste of medicine, and for a dark moment, he wonders if it would foul up his metal hand too, if he poured it on it.

Alex coughs uncomfortably, turning his gaze away. Maria stiffens, just as uncomfortable as Alex, and meets his eyes for only one fleeting moment before she jerks her eyes away, looking almost stricken.

This time, Maes knows, she is not going to bring up his family. She should be well aware by now that that is not welcome.

Thankfully, there’s enough information to try and discuss that there’s plenty to dominate the conversation in without the need to bring up Gracia and Elicia.

“We were just talking about the Crimson Lotus Alchemist,” Alex says, carefully casual, subtle in a way that very few knew he could be. “Remember him, from the civil war?”

Maes’ eyes darken.

Oh, yes. He remembers Kimbley.

At his hesitant nod, Alex goes on, gaze heavy with a silent warning. “Not much has happened yet, so this is all still my speculation... but a few things have gotten my attention about him, recently. Some talks going around the upper brass- and I did some checking. The families, for those soldiers he killed? They’ve all left town, sir. Under mysterious circumstances, at that. I tried to look up the files from his old court martial- and they’re gone, sir. Every last one.” Alex paused soberly, giving him another dangerous look. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s about to get released from prison.”

He doesn’t have to explain what this means to Maes.

At Maria’s confused look, he begins to anyway, giving her a short rundown on the alchemist’s past, the lieutenant too young to have served back then- but Maes and Alex already know. Alex knows from the direct, terrible experience, and Maes...

Maes remembers, from that day Roy had come back from the hot front lines, blackened with soot and burns, his eyes dark as blood, and dragging an incapacitated Kimbley behind him, exactly how crazy that man is.

It’s also a very, very bad sign.

Alex’s report is confirming what he’d known all along, that this conspiracy reaches into the higher echelons of the military itself- and, even worse, that whatever it is that’s going on, it’s getting worse. Releasing Kimbley is political suicide and won’t just inspire the public to riot, it’ll cause dissent in the military itself- the generals wouldn’t be condoning this unless they felt they had to. Whatever it is that the brass, perhaps even Bradley himself, are planning, it’s getting much worse, and it’s getting worse _now._ Their plans are changing, and it’s in a way that leaves Maes itching with the instincts of self-preservation and _danger_.

Something is going to happen. Something bad, and soon.

He doesn’t need to warn the two to try and steer as clear as they can from Kimbley. After a moment of silence, though, Maes starts, then suddenly grabs for his pen with a burst of worried realization. _Roy._

Maes can hope that Roy’s smart enough to realize that this is not one fight he wants to pick- but the problem is, it’s not just Roy he has to worry about. If Kimbley is even just as sane as he’d been back in Ishval, the Crimson Lotus may set his sights on his old, onesided rivalry, and decide it’s time to finish it. Lethally.

And somehow, Maes doubts a decade in solitary confinement has done anything to make Kimbley get a firmer grip on reality.

Ordinarily, that alone would be a cause for intense worry, but now Maes finds himself recognizing, with a sick sense of guilt in his stomach, that while Kimbley’s crazy enough to go after Roy-

These days, he worries Roy might not be level-headed enough to talk his way out of a fight- or stable enough to want to.

The order he’s given for Roy’s safety, however, he can already tell is not necessary. He can see it on Alex’s face even as he reads the short note that the major hadn’t been planning on letting the two State Alchemists get within a hundred feet of each other.

Somehow, he still doesn’t feel all that reassured.

Next, Maria speaks up, giving her own report of information with the same grim solemness that Alex had told them about Kimbley with. “Speaking of alchemists... I’ve been keeping an eye out on Fullmetal and his brother, after Lab 5. Our suspicions have been right. They’re definitely being watched- both of them. Someone military, and I don’t think it’s anyone on Colonel Mustang’s team.”

Maes grimaces darkly, sinking almost sullenly back into his seat. Damn it. He rubs a tired hand over his face, trying not to let his disappointment show- but... _damn it._ He’d been holding out hope those two kids, at least, would escape all of this unscathed- but it seems the homunculi want something with even them. What, exactly, he’s not sure yet- but the Elrics are both being watched, and it is not a coincidence that they’re being watched at that same time that Maes has had to run over a hundred miles just to stay alive.

They’re being pulled into this, too, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

And that, god; it galls him to no end, making restlessness squirm inside him and his own frustration rise up in an angry curse he can’t say. He can’t stand that he can’t be there to try and stop whatever this is from grabbing them, too. Like Winry, they’re still only children, they’ve done nothing to deserve any of this- but it’s just too late to save them from it. There’s nothing Maes can do to protect them, from so far away, but some small part of him thinks even if he were back in Central, his hands would be just as tied.

After all, if he hadn’t managed to save his own life, why on earth does he think he’d be able to save theirs?

He will, though. Somehow, Maes swears silently, he’ll find a way. The whole point of him hiding out here like this is to try and keep everyone he cares about back home safe, and that means he’s going to find whatever way he can to try and shield those kids from this. He’s going to protect Gracia, and he’s going to protect Elicia, and he is _going_ to protect Ed and Al from this, too- even if he has to stand between them and Fuhrer Bradley himself.

Which, as this investigation goes on, is looking less and less like hyperbole and more and more like a terrifying possibility.

There’s not really much for Maes to pass on, from his end; he’s still trying to establish himself down here, and until he’s started extending feelers and getting connections again, it’ll be hard for him to investigate anything. The libraries are extremely unhelpful, though he’s made a little more progress mapping out just where the critical points in this massive transmutation circle are. What they’re going to do with that information is still anyone’s guess; it all depends on what the homunculi’s plan actually is- but at this point, any information helps.

All he’s sure of anymore is that they are running out of time.

Soon, the talk turns back to Roy, this time not about his past with Kimbley but what his best friend is keeping himself busy with now. “Colonel Mustang’s very busy these days,” Maria says vaguely, but her eyes are anything but carefree. “Investigating his friend’s murder. That adjutant of his is starting to have to drag him away from it just to get him to submit the rest of his work on time.”

Alex is less subtle, barely even disguising the fact that this is a report on Roy’s state and not just a random turn in the discussion. “The day I left for Rush Valley, he’d been sleeping in his office for a week.”

Ah.

Of course he is.

Just...

Of _course_ he is.

Maes grimaces, his fingers curling tightly together under the table, and swallows back a wave of exhausted guilt. He’s not surprised. He’s not happy, but he’s can’t pretend that he’s surprised, either.

Roy’s never won any rewards for his healthy coping abilities. Since, really, he has none.

And the fact that Maes just desperately wants to go back home right now punch some sense into his damn face, to take care of Roy before Roy off and implodes from his inability to do it himself, that he _needs_ to be there to do it and can’t stand sitting here doing nothing knowing it’s all his fault, is, quite simply, neither here nor there.

Not anymore.

 _Keep an eye on him,_ he writes at last, looking to Alex but speaking to them both. The words are short and simple, transcribed in a miserable hand, and he pushes it with an even more miserable sigh across the table, his shoulders slumping in defeat. There’s nothing else he can do.

However, Maes realizes, with a dawning sense of discontent, there is still something for concern, in what he’s been told here tonight.

Roy’s slow spiral into decompensation is one matter. The fact that Roy is now digging into the same matters that had gotten him shot is another. The very last thing they need is for the Flame Alchemist himself to be sent into hiding.

Maria and Alex will need to keep an eye out for more than just Kimbley, in whatever it is that’s coming.

Both of the soldiers nod, though the order for Roy’s safety had been more for his sake than theirs; he’d known they’d already intended on doing it. Roy, he knows, is going to all but kill himself trying to find whatever information he can on the people responsible for this all- and since Maes can’t be there to do it, his former subordinates are just going to have to be the ones to make sure he doesn’t go too far.

Another bit of bitter irony. He’s left to try and protect Roy, and now, he can’t even manage that much, because he’s here, and Roy is not.

That’s how the rest of their clandestine meeting passes, just as long as they dare before they have to part for what is sure to be months. How they’re going to keep safe everyone they have to. Maria will watch the Elrics. Alex will watch Kimbley, and Hawkeye, whether she knows they’re depending on her or not, will watch Roy.

It’s already been decided that if the homunculi go after Gracia and Elicia, Maes will end this conspiracy that very day, and go back home for them. He’ll take his family straight out of this hell of a country and reinvent them somewhere far, far away, somewhere so far from its borders not even Fuhrer Bradley can reach them.

He can’t deny that the allure that idea has for him.

He can’t deny that there is a very big part of him that wants to ignore the danger that’d bring to his family to run back home and do it right _now._

It’d put Gracia and Elicia in danger. It’d leave Ed and Al Elric at the complete mercy of whatever nightmare is trying to tear this country apart. It’d be completely abandoning Roy, and everything he’d promised to support him in.

But...

_I wouldn’t be alone here anymore._

Maes lets his gaze drift back downwards, shoulders slumping even more as he listens to Alex and Maria still converse in quiet, soft tones around him, a conversation he can’t join even if he’d wanted to, and lets the grief collapse inwards until there’s nothing left.

What he is, right now, just doesn’t matter.

He has to stay down here, grit his teeth, and just do his job, because he’s not important, and everything and everybody else, all the people who are safer if he stays dead, are.

He has no choice but to stay dead.

Even if it’s ripping him apart.

There’s little for them to do, at this point, which means this meeting really needs to conclude. It’s the first time in weeks he’s felt at all useful, and it’s so damn _nice_ to sit here with people actually paying attention to him, people that he knows, people who know _him-_ but they can’t risk it.

He hates it, but he knows it’s a fact.

So, together, they all start to stand up. Alex Louis and Maria give him small, polite smiles, trying to look to any eavesdroppers like nothing more than strangers to him, and he nods silently back as he prepares to step away, saying goodbye to one of the only familiar things he has left in his life-

“Major Armstrong! Lieutenant Ross! I didn’t know you were in town- how nice to see you!”

And that’s how, for the second time in his life, Winry Rockbell nearly gives him a heart attack.

Everyone in the group is surprised, Alex and Maria both stiffening, startled, while Maes jerks with a sudden crash of trepidation- and Winry is there, beaming in innocent welcoming. She’s heading out from a back room, a bag of her tools slung over her shoulder while someone Maes vaguely recognizes as the owner’s son following after her, slowly flexing a metal hand that looks to just have had repairs done on it- and then, still, there was Winry, completely innocent, and with no idea what she was interrupting.

She jogs over to them still, raising a hand in greeting as she approaches. She gives him a smile, too, though she at least doesn’t say his name in public.

But it’s a little too late for that to help.

She approaches them confidently, looking to him just as familiarly as she does the officers- and Maria is the first to realize it. Slowly, the lieutenant looks at Winry, her eyes narrowing in confusion, then looks back at him.

At the look on his face alone, that confusion becomes suspicion.

And then, disbelief.

“No...” she murmurs, looking between them again, “no, you wouldn’t have- sir...”

There’s an uncomfortable moment of silence. Maes, unable to say a word in his own defense, folds his arms unhappily to just look at the floor.

Reacting like that isn’t really the best way to get out of this- but there’s no way out of it anyhow. Maria knows.

“Um...” Winry hedges uncomfortably, clearly not clued in to what’s happening here. “Am I interrupting something?” She takes a hesitant step back, looking at him for advice as she does so and clutching her bag a little tighter. “I can just- another time, then?” She takes another step back, still watching him.

It’s the fact that she’s still looking to him that does it.

Maria’s eyes widen. She stares from him to Winry and back to him again-

And cold realization washes over her face like a storm.

It’s a rush and burst of movement; Maria grabs Winry around the shoulders while Alex is suddenly propelling him from behind, the both of them abruptly forced to move at top speed straight to the back room that Winry had just left. “H-hey!” the mechanic splutters, trying to fight free, “what are you doing?! What’s going on?! Lieutenant-“

Maria slams the door shut and whirls around, eyes blazing as she turns, not to Winry, but to him. “You know her?!” she cries, gesticulating almost violently, “You made contact with someone?! She knows who you are! Sir, you can’t do that! It’s too dangerous! After all we went through to get you safe- how many others know; who else did you tell?!”

Maes glares rather than make even an attempt at answering. Being yelled at like he’s an unruly child makes him hate this even worse; his inability to talk back- not that it matters, because even as his frustration rises and his mouth starts to grimace, he’s already being ignored again. Maria turns back around to pace, not looking at him or a very stunned Winry, then abruptly sends her gaze back to Alex. “We need to move him again. Tonight, if it’s at all possible.Major, is the backup location still safe?”

Armstrong nods without pause, the steadiness of his expression flaring Maes’ silent frustration even further. “Yes. Do you still have the papers for his backup identity?”

“Of course,” Maria rushes out, still frantically pacing and ignoring him still, even when Maes’ eyes widen again. Leaving? Leaving Rush Valley? Starting over, _again?_ No! He won’t do it again! He will _not_ leave the very moment he’s finally started to get his feet back under him again- and he’s not going to abandon what he’s found here in the fact that Winry’s actually trying to support him and help him past the worst place he’s ever been in his life.

He’s not going to shred the very last connection to Maes Hughes that he has.

But Maria and Alex aren’t very interested his opinion. In fact, they’re not even looking at him.

Maria paces even faster, mind obviously racing as she worries on her lower lip, then abruptly whirls on him again, so fast he jumps. “ _You!_ How could you do something so dangerous, so reckless?! Do you have any idea how bad this is- not just for you, but for her?! You could’ve put her in danger! Sir-!” She cuts herself off with another frustrated curse, shaking her head vehemently at either him or the situation itself.

“Um...” Winry hedges uncertainly, voice suddenly small in the chaos this has devolved into, “If it matters, he really didn’t reach out and try to find me? We just met, on accident, and-“

“Even if that’s true, he didn’t have to tell you who he was. And he certainly didn’t have to keep contact with you- _sir.”_ Her eyes flash almost dangerously, hitting him with a blatant accusation, and for the first time in weeks Maes can’t stop himself from opening his mouth to try and defend himself.

Not even a whisper comes out, and his anger flares even hotter.

 _Listen to me!_ he wants to shout, finds himself actually mouthing the words in desperate, fatigued frustration, _just listen to me!_ Don’t talk to him like he’s just a child, don’t ignore him, stop acting like he’s barely even there-

“I’ll arrange transport out of the city tonight,” Alex cuts in swiftly, just as steady as his lieutenant. “Ross, can you escort Miss Rockbell back home and debrief her? I’ll get the lieutenant colonel out of here.”

_Wait! WAIT! I’m not going anywhere- stop ignoring me! STOP IT!_

“Of course. We’ll discuss this later, Hughes. Miss Rockbell-“

“Hang on, wait, I don’t-“

Maes hammers a fist back against the wall in a pathetic move that almost shatters his pride, trying to attract their attention and make them stop, but they’re just ignoring him completely. Maria has her arm around Winry’s, trying to get the mechanic to the door without even looking at him, while Alex is already turning away himself, looking back towards the bar, probably looking back for that connection of his to shepherd him out of the city- and Maes finally snaps.

The knife thuds down, hitting the table dead center in a blur with an earsplitting _crack._ The wood splinters in two, splitting away from the knife in a spiderweb of cracks, and for the first time, everything in the room falls still.

_LISTEN TO ME!_

There’s a dead, uncomfortable silence. Everybody stares at him now, everybody shocked, everybody frozen. Anger cracks inside him and floods outwards in an overwhelming wave, breaths catching over and over again, and for a moment, he can’t even breathe.

_Just listen to me._

He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. His throat hurts.

They’re all still staring at him.

And as angry and frustrated and impatient as Maes is, he realizes he even more upset with himself, because as desperately as he just wants to be _listened_ to- he can’t say a word.

He misses Gracia. He misses Roy.

He misses the people who wouldn’t even need him to say anything, because they’d know what was wrong without him having to give a single word.

But they’re not here, and instead, Maes is left just standing there, mid-silent outburst, everyone in the room staring at him silently like there’s something wrong with him. Alex is gravely wordless, Maria is somberly shocked- and Winry just looks worried. Worried, for him.

Maes shuts his eyes for a moment, and breathes.

The only person who _is_ here that can understand him is Winry.

And as much as he hates the bitter taste it leaves in his mouth, as much as he hates doing it this way at all, Maes knows he doesn’t have a choice, so he just raises his hands, and talks the only way he knows how.

It’s awkward and uncomfortable. His metal hand always hurts at night after a long day of use, so to try and contort it into the right signs now is almost excruciating. He hates doing it at all because it just feels so much like admitting that this is it, now, for the rest of his life, this is the _only_ way he has to speak now and he’ll never be able to so much as tell his best friend he’s and idiot or his wife that he loves her again, and that’s not an admission that he’s not ready to make, and that is the number one reason why he had never allowed himself to learn it until Winry had forced him.

But if he doesn’t do this, he can’t say anything at all. And right now, he _needs_ to say something.

“He says he’s not going anywhere,” Winry puts forward at last, voice sounding uncomfortable to the extreme. She looks at him hesitantly, the worry still pressing into her blue eyes, and Maes keeps on going, signing each word deliberately and uncomfortably and refusing to let his gaze dissolve into a glare until he’s looked away from her. “He... he says that he’s staying here.”

Maria sighs, long and frustrated, again with the sound of a parent taking to a task an unruly, foolish child. “Sir,” she tells him again, placating, cajoling, but almost patronizing, “will all due respect, you can not. It’s too dangerous. You-“

 _It’s NOT!_ he tries to say, mouth forming the words and a desperate metal fist again slamming back against the wall, but she keeps talking as if he’d not even said anything at all. Which he hadn’t.

“The whole point of hiding you here is to keep you safe; _any_ contact with anyone at all can jeopardize that. And if you don’t care about that; if you don’t care about the danger you’ve put yourself in, then at least think about Winry, sir.It’s not just yourself you’re putting in danger here, and you know it.”

Maes’ mouth was already open for a silent refutation, anger still pounding his heart and denial making his blood run hot with repressed shouts, and even before she’d finished talking he’d already started to furiously sign a reply. As the words slowly hit him, though, he found himself forced to a hesitant stop.

Winry.

Winry, and the danger he was putting her in.

The one piece about this that he couldn’t deny. The one, single piece about this that Maria and Alex _were_ right about- and that he’d known all along, too. The one piece that he had tried very, very hard not to dwell on, because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to let himself do this any longer.

He _was_ putting Winry in danger here.

What was the reason he’d gone into hiding at all? What was the reason even his wife and daughter and best friend were left in the dark? It wasn’t just to keep himself safe; it was for them, too. The homunculi will stop at nothing to silence him, and anyone who knows he’s alive is a potential target.

Winry is in danger purely because of his own selfish actions. That much _is_ true. He’s putting her in danger, and it’s for no other reason except to make himself feel better.

That much is true.

That much is inexcusable.

And for the first time since Maria has seen Winry- in fact, for the first time since Maria had come to him weeks ago telling him about Roy and trying to him to give her a reprieve- Maes actually lets himself slow down a moment, and think about what his lieutenant is saying.

Because he knows she’s right.

Maes, feeling something inside him sicken and, piece by piece, be crushed, hesitantly turns his gaze to look at Winry again. The only reason he really wants to stay- and yet, the only reason he has to leave.

The innocent child he’s sucked unwillingly into this.

Slowly, distantly, Maes feels himself raise his metal hand again. The return of his dexterity and mobility, again, all thanks to her, and he starts to sign to her once more. He still doesn’t quite know the right way to do it; again, the fact that he can sign at all is all thanks to her, and it’s with a crushing sense of reluctance and despair as he starts to sign to her the request that maybe, just maybe, she should reconsider this again. How much danger he’s put her in, and the fact that she can- and, probably, _should-_ choose safety.

As awkward as he is at saying it, it takes Winry a few moments to be able to interpret it. He knows when she does understand, though, because the confusion slowly melts away, and in its place-

In its place, hardens a cold, uncompromising glare.

Her eyes flash dangerously, and once again, he finds himself leveled with such a dangerous stare he wouldn’t have been able to speak even if she’d wanted to.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she snaps, almost a hiss, and her fists ball so tightly he winces.

Maria steps forward next, a little gentler when she’s dealing with Winry instead of him, the one who’s innocent here instead of guilty. “Nothing’s happened thus far, but you can’t know how things will turn out. You can’t even understand how dangerous this is, Winry. You need to let us protect you, and-“

“No! No, I _don’t!”_ The mechanic jerks back from Maria’s hand to glare around at them all, breathing hard and almost spitting fire now, infuriated at them all. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a kid! Don’t I get in a say in this?! If I’m the one this is so dangerous for, shouldn’t I get to be able to make that choice for myself? You don’t get to make it for me!”

Maria and Maes exchange another worried look, his lieutenant plainly unswayed while Maes just can’t help but feel awful about this whole thing. He stares miserably back at Winry, trying to make her understand he’s sorry without being able to say it; the glare she returns back tells him it’s not accepted. And when Maria starts trying to talk to her again, cajoling and gently persuasive, the anger that twists across her face is nothing short of livid. “Winry, you need to listen to us-“

“No. Stop, _stop._ You listen to _me!”_ Winry steps firmly back again, spreading her hands as she glares back to them, eyes fierce and hands clenching over and over. “I’m not a child. I understand what’s going on. I understand it’s dangerous. I-“

“Winry, you can’t-“

“My parents were killed in your war, Lieutenant Ross,” Winry cuts in coldly, her eyes flashing. Maes winces, while she does not; and she meets them all without flinching, her voice remaining as steady and cold as ice. “I see what my best friends go through every day with you. My family’s ben ripped apart because of everything you’re trying to fight. I’m not stupid, and I’m not naive... I understand what’s going on, and that’s it dangerous- and that doesn’t matter to me. That’s why I won’t leave! I’m tired of sitting back here and watching everyone else fight while I don’t get the chance to; I want to help- and I’m going to.” She looks back at Maes, the anger softening just a little and melting into something almost vulnerable, but there’s still a stubborn, vehement light in her eyes, an unwavering one- one that says she’s not backing down.

“I’m staying,” she says firmly, folding her arms in a stubborn display of defiance. “I know I can’t do that much, but I want to help any way that I can. If this is what I’m able to do, then I’m going to do it. I’m staying here with Hughes.”

And, that’s that.

She recognizes the danger- and that’s why she’s staying. She’s knows this is a war they’re about to fight, and she wants to stay, because she wants to help. She wants to help _him,_ even more than she already has.

And Maes knows her well enough by now to realize that no matter what he tries to tell her, her mind is made up.

Affection blooms in his chest, and for a startling moment, he’s so fond of her it almost hurts. He fights back a sad smile, almost beaming with a guiltstricken bolt of pride.

Winry’s not his daughter, he hadn’t even met her until she was well past childhood, but the only word he has for the familiar, warm affection and pride inside him right now is familial, and for the first time in weeks, he finds himself wishing for his camera again, to be able to show off how wonderful his mechanic is to anyone who would listen.

Maria’s the first to actually speak up, the lieutenant looking just as startled as him but also in a pitying way, watching Winry like she feels sorry for the girl. “I... I still don’t think...” she starts hesitantly, wariness in every syllable- but this time, it’s Alex who stops her.

“I think,” the State Alchemist rumbles, “that your parents would be very proud.”

Those are all the words that are needed, to finally put an end to all of this.

Winry flushes, face going faintly pink even as the stubborn anger burning in her eyes softens into embarrassment. She stutters something, then just shuts her mouth uncomfortably, looking not quite sure what to say, and flushes even more when he raises a hand, signing back _yes, they would be._

Maria still doesn’t agree. He can see it on her face- but she finally understands that it doesn’t matter if she agrees, because it’s not her choice.

It’s Winry’s, and Winry’s made the choice to stay.

Winry coughs uncomfortably again, clearing her throat while her face is still darkened with embarrassment but looking to him and Alex with some of the most honest, sincere gratitude he’s ever seen. “W-well... yes. Y-yeah. Now that... that’s settled.” She glares hotly at Maria, then heads off towards him without a second’s hesitation, grabbing him around his metal wrist to forcibly drag him off to the door. “I’m _staying!”_ she calls back loudly over her shoulder, voice firm and door shutting with a sharp slam, trying to look put together and steady but her cheeks are still glowing and he can see in her still softening eyes just how touched and moved she is,and he can’t help but smile back.

Maes lets himself be manhandled straight out the door and into the brisk, cold night, his mechanic all but stomping down the street and looking anywhere at him, still hauling him along by his wrist. “The _nerve!”_ she starts to mutter, fuming and still red-faced, “Trying to make me leave like that! Unbelievable! What’s with you all; why do all of you think you can just order me and Ed and Al back because we’re young? We’re not stupid, and we can help- we can! It’s not fair that you all should have to do everything! I’m not going anywhere; I want to help!”

 _She’s only wanting you to be safe,_ he manages to sign back, silently laughing, but Winry isn’t looking at him, still glaring off down the street, still blushing. He understands, after all; Maria _does_ mean well, and in many, many ways, Maes agrees with her, and would probably sleep a little easier if Winry _did_ leave him here and now because at least she’d be safe- but it’s not what she wants.

She drags him off another bit of the way, although Maes easily outpaces her, and is only letting her pull him because she still hasn’t let go of his wrist; it’s as if she’s almost forgot she’s even holding it. The rush of anger in her voice is a facade this time, trying to mask her embarrassment, but it still takes her a couple of moments to finally calm and slow down. By this point, they’ve attracted multiple strange looks, looks that Winry is blind to, and Maes is unable to address with anything but a weak grin, but his attention is still on his mechanic as her mask fades, and with it comes a shadow of uncertain hesitancy.

“...Did you two... did you really mean what you said? Back there?” She pauses a moment longer, face shadowed and voice small, almost hushed as her pace finally slows to a walk. He chances a quick look back at him, still insecure and uncertain in a dozen saddening ways. “About...”

He doesn’t need her to finish the sentence to know what she means.

Maes nods seriously once. Slowly, once her hold loosens even more, he turns his metal hand back around to touch hers.

She slows even more, eyes downcast and almost stricken. She looks like she doesn’t even know what to say, again sorrowfully, almost painfully grateful, moved all over again, and it takes her a few moments to find her voice again. “I hadn’t you realized you’d known them at all. But I guess you would have... you and Major Armstrong were in the war together, after all...”

Maes notices the way she says that, _the war,_ almost like it’s a poison, how her eyes darken a little, and lets his own smile fade. Ishval sounds like just as unhappy a topic for her as it is for him and Roy, but he slows for a moment anyway, making himself think back and remember the Rockbell doctors.

He had recognized Winry for who she was immediately the day he’d met her; the spitting image of her mother, and her last name and occupation being more than enough evidence for him. He hasn’t, however, ever talked about her parents to her, figuring him bringing it up out of the blue wouldn’t be all that welcome- he suspects now that no one has, despite how involved she’s been with the military the past few years. He hesitates for a few moments, trudging along next to her in the dark.

 _They would be proud of you, you know,_ he signs finally. _We meant that._ If there was anybody else who would do what she was doing here, endangering herself so much just to try and give him some bare minimum of support and comfort, it would be her parents. They’d been the most selfless people on that battlefield, and somehow, it was no surprise that Winry has made this commitment. It’s admirable as all hell- but not surprising.

She hesitates again, uncertainty flickering in her eyes and a warm heat still burning in her cheeks. She opens her mouth to say something, then just stops.

Maes smiles at her again. _If you want me to tell you about them, I can._

Once again, his answer is silence- and somehow, he finds it almost amusing that now that he can’t speak, he can read her silence even easier than he can her words. Her answer is written in her abruptly joyful eyes, in the sudden, longing smile starting to cross her face- and Maes needs no more prompting.

She may not be his daughter, but he’s proud of her right now like she is, and she’s giving him so much that she doesn’t have to- so the very least he can do is give her this much back.

 _The first time I met them, it was because Roy was too embarrassed to see the camp medics. He’d sat right on a- a-_ he has to stop, awkwardly spelling out the word _scorpion_ , and when Winry finally realizes what he’s trying to say and her face abruptly breaks out into warm laughter, eyes brightening in unrestrained happiness, he knows that this right here is the closest he’s going to get to the family he can’t have back in Central.

Some day, he’ll make it back to them. He _will._

But for now, this is what he has, and, he thinks as he walks down the street, telling Winry all about the dressing down they had once given a blushing Roy what feels like a century ago, that this’ll do.


End file.
